Thursday, January 24, 2013

Blogger's Note - In the days surrounding the Super Bowl, finding an open table in New Orleans will be as difficult as setting up an in person encounter with Manti Te'o's girlfriend. As restaurants prepare for a deluge of high dollar diners, here at Blackened Out Concierge Services, we have been racking our brains for recommendations for our out of town guests who would like to enjoy a taste of the best that New Orleans has to offer but without the 2 hour wait or a bank account busting price tag. And with that goal in mind, we present to you our Super Bowl Sleepers.

The roast beef po-boy from Sammy's Food Service & Deli.

Even though many visitors to the Big Easy correlate New Orleans' culinary scene with Hank Williams' praises of jambalaya, crawfish pie, and file' gumbo, the po-boy is probably the most recognized dish of our fair city. Furthermore, the po-boy cuts across all socioeconomic boundaries and is enjoyed by both blue bloods from the School of Design, refinery workers in Chalmette, and everyone in between. In my opinion, the po-boy best represents New Orleans culinary connection among the past, present, and future, and whenever TFS and I host first time visitors to the city, we almost always take them out to experience a po-boy lunch.

Often duplicated but never replicated, if the po-boy is New Orleans' iconic sandwich, then the roast beef version probably best represents perfection on a loaf of Leidenheimer. So the question then becomes: Where to recommend for a roast beef po-boy during the busiest weeks of the year?

Forget about Parkway Bakery. The lines will be out the door, and truthfully the roast beef just is simply not worth it. I feel the same way about Domilise's. On a recent visit Tracy's roast beef was surprisingly better than I remembered, but I still prefer the reworked roast beef at Parasol's (which I admittedly have not tried in almost 2 years).

But for a top notch roast beef po-boy without all of the fuss, my #1 recommendation is still Sammy's on Elysian Fields. Yes, getting there will require a short cab ride, but Sammy's is most absolutely worth the trip. Sammy's is the quintessential neighborhood New Orleans joint, where the menu and staff epitomize a home cooking mentality that is passed down from generations like a family gumbo recipe. The roast beef po-boy is excellent - composed of thinly sliced/shredded beef soaking in a gravy just thick enough to moisten the bread without compromising overall structural integrity.

The Ray-Ray po-boy at Sammy's.

As a lagniappe, Sammy's fries seafood and chicken as well as any other place in town, especially the chicken wings. And for those of you with a Super Bowl sized appetite, look no further than the Ray-Ray - a juicy, fried chicken breast that somehow remains crunchy under an inch-thick pile of thinly sliced grilled ham and Swiss cheese.